Welcome to Dagmar’s Home and the Blue Cottage Christmas Home Tour!
After writing blog posts about decorating our kitchen and how I made our Christmas tree taller, plus how I repurposed a vintage pie tin to make this centerpiece, here is the decorated living room of our Blue Cottage!
I’m so excited to show you because a lot of work went into it, and I really like how it turned out.
Blue Cottage Christmas Home Tour
My Christmas theme for this year: simple, rustic, and a lot of plaid.
And bottle brush trees.
I bought some new things at Target and HomeGoods, but most of the Christmas decor are thrift store and tag sale finds I’ve collected over the years.
This oil painting is an antique my mom gave me on my last visit to Germany — it’s wonderful to have a former antique dealer as a mother, with a whole house full of antiques.
This painting was sitting among others in the basement, and I usually pick one to bring back. I already used it for my fall mantel decor.
I added a few $3 Christmas trees from Target around the house but purposefully didn’t put any ornaments on them.
The grain sack blanket is from HomeGoods, and the plaid pillow from Target.
My theme really started with those adorable wooden trees that I found at HomeGoods. The rustic look of them appealed to me so much, and I decided to stay away from anything too shiny or colorful for this year’s Christmas decor, compared to last year.
I also used a lot of wreaths this year: I have one hanging on the front door, one in the kitchen, one on our staircase wall, two in the front windows, and one under the plate with our hand-painted angel collection.
Oh, and the boxwood wreath on our mantel, which was also a HomeGoods finds, as well as the plaid runner, wooden star in the window, huge bell ornament, and garland around the fireplace frame.
Those doors on the mantel belong to the hutch I painted white a while ago. I used one of the doors for my summer mantel decor, but for Christmas I wanted to create a bigger statement.
I think I paid $10 for this vintage sled, and I bought another one a couple of months ago, which I’m using on our porch.
I already told you the story about that faux deer head and frame around it, and here is the post for this easy DIY centerpiece.
I simply added a plaid bow to this IKEA planter. I should’ve picked up more plaid ribbon — it was only $1 a roll at Target.
My table setting is really simple this year, because of these adorable HomeGoods plates:
I usually like to add a salad bowl to the plates and decorate it with paper goods or name tags, but I didn’t want to cover up these charming plates — which have a little mouse and the rest of the sentence on the back. So cute!
I added stickers to the top of wooden napkin rings for a little embellishment, and the gold-rimmed glasses were on clearance for $8 at HomeGoods.
Here is the other side of our living room. Our front door is on the right, next to the white hutch.
Since we don’t have a mudroom, I’m storing our mittens and winter hats in those two boxes.
There is nothing rustic about this Santa marquee sign, but I fell in love with it at Target. It’s just a fun addition.
We could put the plate with cookies and milk right in front of it for Santa this year, and he’d definitely not miss them.
I’m going to paint this armoire soon! It’s the first piece I’m going to paint with Amy Howard’s paint.
Wait until you see which color I choose — Amy already sent over all of the supplies I need.
The green box was a tag sale find I bought months ago and put aside for Christmas decor.
These little houses are actually filled with alcohol — you get them as a souvenir on KLM flights. I had two of them, and then I found two more at a tag sale.
This is only half of the Blue Cottage Christmas Home Tour. More to come!
If you didn’t see my post about how I made this Christmas tree look fuller, check it out.
I made the Santa snow glove with a mason jar last year…
…and another one this year.
It’s so easy to put these together: vintage mason jar, bottle brush tree, plastic deer, fake snow, glue dot, done.
And because I wanted a lot of plaid for my decor, I added plaid ribbon around the mason jar lid and around the vintage spools to make those tiny tree displays.
This large, handmade tray is a $10 estate sale find that I grabbed when I picked up these blue chairs at the sale. Remember what a steal they were, and how surprised I was that I ended up with them?
The “merry” pillow is also from HomeGoods.
And that’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed the Blue Cottage Christmas Home Tour!
Wishing you a wonderful holiday season.
Enjoy your family and friends, and don’t sweat the small stuff. If holiday prep is stressing you out, take a deep breath and refocus. It’s supposed to be a time of togetherness and reflection, and not about shopping.
At least that what I intend to focus on. I’m looking forward to enjoy our Christmas cottage with the people I love, and to slow down for some quality time with them.
I’d love to hear which part of my Blue Cottage Christmas Home Tour is your favorite.
